Reaching Out

While a great deal of our outreach is done through programs and events, two of our outreach efforts extend to dozens of young people each year. Funds raised through the Birdathon support our Scholarships and our coordination with teachers allows us to bring Audubon Adventures to local elementary schools.

Scholarships

For more than 25 years, Central Westchester Audubon Society has been offering a limited number of one-week summer camp scholarships to elementary school children. We are thrilled this year to be send 3 children to ecology camp. We look forward to bringing you their stories and share what they learned.

Audubon Adventures

One of the goals of Central Westchester Audubon Society is to increase the environmental awareness of children and to get them involved in nature and the world around them. One of the ways we do this is by sponsoring Audubon Adventures. This is an educational program, created by National Audubon for third and fourth grade students, which presents information about birds, other wildlife and their habitats through a series of five special newspapers, a teacher's resource manual (filled with hands-on activities) and a video. The whole packet is sent to teachers at the beginning of the school year so they can integrate the program into their curriculum.

This year's topic is "Cool Critters": water birds, dragonflies and damselflies, turtles and tortoises, and spiders.The packet contains about 30 copies of the newspaper so that every child has his own. Some teachers find them so valuable that they have them laminated in order to build up a library for continued use. The program was developed by professional educators and, therefore, reflects current science standards.

This year, CWAS sponsored 24 classes reaching about 500 children in the White Plains Public Schools. Your contributions through the PayPal button and membership dues, help us to supply these kits which this year cost $40.95 each. We would like to provide this material for many other classes and to reach out to more schools in the areas our chapter covers. Would you like to sponsor a class? Would your company like to underwrite a subscription? How about your PTA.? If you are interested in sponsoring a class or if you know of a school that would like to have the Audubon Adventures program, please direct your e-mail to our Education Chairman, Susan Fried. She can be reached through info@cwasociety.org.